Growing Up

Growing Up

You can’t put a label on everything and tuck it neatly away into a box.

Sometimes you need the right person to open up to.

Old habits die hard.

I’m not sure if I mentioned this in a different post, but I got a job this summer. I spent everyday of the past six weeks at a summer camp. It was a difficult decision to make as to whether or not I would take the job, but once I did I didn’t regret it.

The first two weeks were pretty rough, home sickness hit me hard. But then I eventually found my own little group of friends.

It started with a few of us hanging out at night and playing games. Then it slowly turned towards me trying to get the attention of a certain individual. He was tall with red hair and a gift when it came to guitar. He was the absolute opposite of me in almost every way imaginable.

Where I was loud when it came to my friends, he was quiet. Where I listened to punk rock and rap, he listened to Pink Guy and Chainsmokers. But most importantly, where I was presumably gay, he was undeniably straight.

Now you may be thinking, “Wait, did she just say presumably gay?”. And to that, my dear reader, I say yes. I the gayest of the gays, have fallen for a male.

It was not an easy conclusion to come to. In fact, I put off admitting it to myself for quite some time before I finally started to think about it. I always brushed it off as just really liking his personality and wanting to get to know him as a friend. But I admitted it to someone else first and once it was out in the open, I couldn’t ignore it anymore.

It wasn’t something that I had meant to admit either. It just sort of…slipped out. Like your phone from your hand when you start to doze off at night. Or the sprinkles from an ice cream cone. There was nothing that I could do to stop it, and what ensued after was messy.

Once i had admitted the fact that I had a “microscopic little crush” on the boy, to his friend no less, I could no longer ignore my feelings and just write them off as wanting friendship. Once it had been admitted both to another living, breathing human being and myself, it spiraled out of control.

For the past two years now, I have identified as a lesbian. I have declared that I hate penis and am only into boobs. Which was completely and utterly fine, until I realized that I was attracted to a male.

That night, I was on the verge of a break down from 5:30 to 9:00 pm. Then it came.

We had decided earlier that morning, before I had admitted my feelings, to have a meeting that night at the headquarters buildings. And of course, me being my genius self, I had invited my crush. It was all fine and we played Cards Against Humanity. It was a fun little group meeting. We all went around and played our worst, most politically incorrect cards. And this quiet, sweet, shy redhead, was winning. He was beating all of us and it was one of the single most beautiful things I have ever witnessed.

He was completely blowing away the image of innocence that I had seen him in and it was perfectly fine by me. He would play his cards and any time that it was my turn to choose the winner and I didn’t choose him he would give me this look. It was a glazed over look of almost hatred. Little did I know that he was playing around. But in my worried and panicking mind, I was making my crush hate me.

We continued to play for a while and then one of my cabin mates came in and I dragged him outside and just completely broke down crying. It was as if the floodgate which I had been failing to hold back my emotions with had cracked open and everything was pouring out.

I explained the situation to him and told him how I felt about this boy and he reassured me and let me know that it wouldn’t change how anybody saw me. He told me that it would be okay and that I had people who were here for me, and little did I know, he was right.

He eventually managed to calm me down and offered for us to go around to the front of the building to clean up, but I told him no. I said, “I’m not going to hide this from them.” and I went into the building with tear stained cheeks and puffy eyes and I hugged every individual in that group except for my crush. When I had originally entered he had asked if I was okay and what was wrong and when I ignored him he said “I love you, Julia.” To which I replied with, “Don’t say that.” And wiped at my cheeks again.

Things eventually went back to normal and we wrapped up our game and headed to a part of the camp called “the point”. We ended up laying in the field and star gazing, I awkwardly attempted to get closer to him and he went oblivious to my attempts. It wasn’t until later when I asked, “If I did what that kid did earlier, would it be okay?” and he said yes, that I finally initiated contact with him.

I had been referring to when he had told us that a friend of ours had latched onto his arm, and when he told me yes, I did just that. But in a less “latchy” and more “cuddly” manner.

That was the night that I first began to make a small, microscopic if you will, move on my crush. It was also the night that I realized and came to terms with the fact that I couldn’t put myself neatly into a small little box and that I liked a boy.

In later installments of this blog, I will tell about more coupley moments and how I am growing up and becoming my own person. As for old habits dying hard, i will come to that later as well. But for right now, just know that I am happy and that things are okay.

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